Desktop Publishing

'I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he or she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.' - Maya Angelou

So true, Maya Angelou. So true.

We think you can also tell a bit about a person from what they keep on their desks.

Herewith, a photo essay from the House of Onion:

All this talk of desks has put us in mind to revisit the world's first unmanned flying desk set.*

*And as an added bonus, you'll know how to say 'world's first unmanned flying desk set' in Spanish, because we couldn't find a clip that didn't have subtitles. That should come in handy. But don't let it detract from the pathos of the moment. Oh Todd. Oh Neil. *sob*

O Delicious Ode [***UPDATED***]

She that asketh receiveth; she that seeketh findeth, and to her that knocketh it shall be opened.

No sooner had we expressed our longing for a poet-in-residence, than one stepped up to the plate.

We leave you over the break with the magnificence that is...

Ode on a Missing Pencil
by An Anonymous Writer (more versed in prose than verse)

O pencil with thy heart of lead
Sharpened to your sweetest point
Can it be that thou art dead?
Or lying greyly in some faint?
When I about the desk have made
A hunt for thee
Upon the ground?
What is this?
Oh mercy me!
Behind my ear I had you laid!
O pencil mine, at last you're found!

Happy Easter or Passover

or non-denominational holiday, everyone.
Rest up. Eat well. Drive safely.

***UPDATE***

The Mothership has just alerted us to the exciting fact that WE distribute several collections of Carol Ann Duffy's peoms, including this most gorgeous collection New and Collected Poems for Children. The cover is very lovely, and the wee bird seems somehow paschal - so here's this to enjoy over the break as well...


*Editor disappears to make sure her staff account isn't maxed out*

Animal House!

1) In this short film by Inframe.tv, Nathan Jurevicius is at the zoo - talking about Scarygirl, being close to gorillas and orangutans, drawing on books and generally being interesting and thoughtful.




2) Mr Chicken Goes to Paris GOES TO PARIS!
Look, here he is in the window of the The Red Wheelbarrow at 22 Rue Saint Paul in the Marais. Lucky Mr Chicken!



3) And for no apparent reason other than it perfectly rounds out today's theme (and is hilarious) ...

Friday stuff and items

1. The year got off to a ripper of a start when the short list for the 2010 Territory Read NT Book of the Year was announced and it featured Barry Jonsberg's Cassie and Leonie Norrington's The Devil You Know. Hooray, Barry! Hooray, Leonie! Hooray!

2: And it continued to be awesome with Nathan Jurevicius winning the Aurealis Award for Best Illustrated Book/Graphic Novel for the wonderful, the delightful, the strange and quirky (the pink!) Scarygirl. Hooray, Nathan! Hooray, Scarygirl! Hooray!

3. In a few short days, Lord Sunday, the very last book in Garth Nix's The Keys to the Kingdom series will be out in the world, and the Will of the Architect will finally be made whole. (And ZOMG the ending puts The Max in climax*.) But you don't even have to wait the few days to get started. You can listen to Garth reading the first two chapters RIGHT NOW. Download the podcast from iTunes or listen online - both links are here.

4. 'Don't ever tell anybody anything.' Vale J. D. Salinger.

5. So, the Mothership threw down the gauntlet with this amazing display - and on Wednesday we kind of accidentally picked it up. A happy confluence of events saw us inundated with more cake than we knew what to do with.** There were birthdays, and a sort-of going away that we are refusing to accept so are mostly pretending it isn't happening, and there was this array:

ISOLATE. ENHANCE

This is made of ice-cream, people! ICE-CREAM! It was a good day.

* I can't believe I just wrote that - but it's totally true.

** Ok, this is a lie, we knew exactly what to do with it, it just took us a couple of days rather than the usual 15 minutes.

We have a Scarygirl winner!

And it's a family affair...

Congratulations to Beth, Jed, Ash, Cary, Zachy and Tashi from Victoria!

You are clearly a family of talented sleuths - we are particularly impressed with your work tracking down that tricky Korean Odo Hirsch one.

A super-special advance copy of the Scarygirl graphic novel will be in the post to you right away.

We are also awarding three second prizes of the Scarygirl jacket, which is also a beautiful poster. The jackets go to Kate C & Karen H who both got 6 right, and to Lou at www.weheartbooks.com who snuck in with seconds to spare and 5 right. Well done!

Thank you to everyone who entered. We had lots of fun reading the answers and hope you had fun searching for them.*

For those of you who hanker for resolution, here are the answers.

1) The Boy, the Bear, the Baron, the Bard by Gregory Rogers
2) It's not all about YOU, Calma by Barry Jonsberg
3) The Singer of All Songs ("Chanters of Tremaris" Trilogy Book 1) by Kate Constable
4) Secret Scribbled Notebooks by Joanne Horniman
5) Black Juice by Margo Lanagan
6) Magic Beach by Alison Lester
7) Antonio S and the Mystery of Theodore Guzman by Odo Hirsch

Hurrah!

*In fact, we enjoyed this so much we might just do it again some time...

Bragging, bestowing, baking, browsing

1) The Guardian is saying nice things about Shaun Tan!
(But they failed to add that Shaun is a master at Wii Tennis and Wii Skiing. A fact that we, with our competitive natures dented somewhat, know to be true.)


2) The Scarygirl competition prize will be awarded tomorrow so get your entry in - because who knows there might be a second prize...


3) In exciting cake news: there were a record number of entries in the mothership's Annual Sydney Bake Off. Nom nom! Drool, drool!



Unfortunately neither the Cake-maker-in-waiting nor the Cake-maker-in-waiting's understudy were able to enter as the courier company could not guarantee the cakes would arrive at their prize-winning best. So we could only drool from afar.

Looks like they would have had some stiff competition, and the judges from How To Shuck an Oyster* had a tough task deciding on a winner (possibly hampered by a sugar-induced coma).


4) Books I Done Read has a hoot interviewing Margo Lanagan about Tender Morsels.



* We believe that no actual oysters were shucked in the course of preparations of bake-off items.

Scarygirl competition - hint, hint

The super-special advance of Scarygirl doesn't have a home yet (did we mention it's not published until OCTOBER so you will be MONTHS ahead of the pack). No one has all seven right. So keep those guesses coming.

On Wednesday next week we will award the prize to the person who has the MOST right - so it's worth giving it a shot even if you only know the Margo Lanagan one. Oops, I mean even if you only know one of them.

Anyway, if you're all tuckered out after using Google's language tools to search for... hmm... maybe a classic Australian beach book translated into Korean, you could pop over and play the Scarygirl game to get you in the mood for your winnings.

Scarygirl - a competition!

The spring-like winds in Melbourne have made us all giddy. Now we feel like wearing summer dresses and sitting outside* and GIVING STUFF AWAY. That's right we've decided to have a COMPETITION. Hooray!

THE PRIZE:
a hot-off-the-press, Special Advance Copy of Scarygirl by Nathan Jurevicius.

You will be the coolest kid in school/on the block/at work/around the house/Kirribilly house/The White House (Hi Barack, Michelle, Malia, Sasha, thanks for stopping by) - or wherever it is you spend your days. Because we have very few special advances and everybody wants one.**

YOUR MISSION:

Below are the foreign editions of seven our books.
Can you name the author and the original English title of each?

Be the first to email us seven correct answers and we will send you a Scarygirl for your very own. [You will find our special competition email address in the comments.]

You have ONE WEEK to answer correctly. We will reveal the winner and the answers on Wednesday 29 July. If no one gets them all right, we will award the prize to the person who has the MOST right. So it's worth having a go even if you reckon you only know a couple.

Some are QUITE DIFFICULT, so it's possible that we will drop a HINT or two every now and then. Keep your eyes peeled. Authors whose books are included here are NOT EXCLUDED. You just got a lucky break.

NB Some of these covers also featured the English title. But we have used our mad photoshop skills to camouflage them.

Anyway... Are you ready? On your marks, get set, GO!

1)
















2)
















3)
















4)



















5)
















6)












7)




















*Although the rain that's just begun might put paid to that. Ahh, Melbourne.
**Seriously, we just about have to keep these things under lock and key lest they walk out of the House of Onion seemingly on their lonesome.

Pink is the new black

Dear 4-colour process printing,


Sometime ago we wrote to express our hope that you would not be offended if instead of using a CMYK approximation of pink, we used PMS 806 pink on the cover of Scarygirl by Nathan Jurevicius - because we really needed a dramatic, fluorescent pink that we knew that you would struggle to achieve.

This is just a follow-up letter to show you how splendidly the PMS performed.



You will note that we made excellent use of your wonderful range and processes on the inside pages and the endpapers ...























... and the inside jacket: What ho - a poster!










We now have another little confession to make. It seems we are having an elegant sufficiency of pink at the moment, and it wasn't just for one book that we opted for a pink PMS.

So we are hoping you will also forgive us for going to PMS 182 for the cover of (this aptly titled) gorgeous Pink by Lili Wilkinson, because, my, hasn't it come up a treat - both inside and out.




We do hope you are as pleased with the results as we are.







Don't they look fine in all their pink glory. We (and Nathan & Lili) thank you again for your generosity of spirit and colour and trust you and the PMS spectrum can continue to live together in harmony.



best,

Eds

Scarygirl

Do you know about Scarygirl? She's got a patch on one eye, a tentacle for an arm and her guardian is a ginormous octopus. She is as cute as a button and a little bit odd.

And now she has her own online game, and the buzz is loud - twitter, blogs, the worldwide intermanets are exploding with love for Scarygirl.

Check out the trailer:

Scarygirl Game Trailer from Touch My Pixel on Vimeo.

Then go to www.scarygirl.com to play the game.
For free, people, FOR FREE.

So guess what...

we are so hip it hurts,

we are so cool we're hot,

we are so hot we're smokin'.

Why, Onions, why are you so hip and cool and smokin' hot?
We will tell you why...

Because in October^ of this year WE ARE PUBLISHING THE SCARYGIRL GRAPHIC NOVEL.

*editor fans self with proof pages and has to sit down*

As you can tell, we're a little bit excited. Here is why:

1) Scarygirl is ever so charming, and her adventures are touching and warm-hearted, funny and hair-raising.

2) Nathan Jurevicius's artwork is flipping amazing.

Really, it speaks for itself better than we could ever explain, so here is a little VERY SPECIAL SNEAK PEAK of the Scarygirl graphic novel. As Rilla at Rinzen says, 'Lop off the top of your head, open your mind and spoon in the spine-tingling adventures of Scarygirl.'

^It's really not that far away, truly.